August 1, 2008 at 9:23 am
Largely, I agree with transparency. However, the problem is what happens when things don't work correctly.
Example: During a break a checked a site that I often go to for information. It's a totally clean site. However, one day they had a discussion about breast cancer, so the word "breast" got caught in our corporate filters. I got a brightly colored page stating "THIS SITE IS BLOCKED BECAUSE OF PORNOGRAPHY". I"m glad no one was looking over my shoulder. I'm also glad my name didn't pop up on this site anywhere, otherwise I'd be associated with it.
Point being, at some stage the HR person will trust filters and such to do their work for them, and who knows what will go wrong in this process? Information is fine. Information in the hands of the incompetent can be a very dangerous thing. Better to err on the side of caution...
___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
August 1, 2008 at 9:26 am
Put out there what you want and can live with. I agree that you could and should separate the personal from professional. But there is a little overlap.
If you are married and have kids it might be nice for the boss to know that you will need a little money to support a family. And that you will be looking for a vacation and a day off here and there to assist your spouse with the kids.
And on your own site it would be fair game. However, video of you wasted half-dressed jumping up and down on a squad car with a bottle in one hand and a stogie in the other while you howl at the moon might not be the best job reference. you might want to keep that off line.
Pardon the humor, but it is Friday!
Miles...
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
August 1, 2008 at 9:32 am
Ok, here's my two cents worth:
I once worked with a coworker who was brilliant at their job, but who's personal life was a wreck. Moral? An employee's personal and professional lives are two separate entities, and HR shouldn't use one to judge the other.
That being said, curiosity is human nature. Just because they SHOULDN'T, doesn't mean they WON'T google a potential employee. So if you don't want your personal online life impacting your professional life - don't post it! It's as simple as that.
August 1, 2008 at 9:36 am
Since the internet is public domain, I think your employer has every right to search your social profile, just like anyone else.
One can question the fairness of an employer that bases their hiring decisions partly on a person's social footprint that is deemed "undesirable". However, one must consider the flip side. If an employer finds nothing but "positive" attributes for a potential hire, how does one know it's all true? People can be creative and may post any information they want, true or false.
Bottom line, don't believe everything you see on the internet, positive or negative. Nothing beats a good face-to-face interview or having to work with someone side-by-side when it comes to judging a person's character.
August 1, 2008 at 9:54 am
blandry (8/1/2008)
I know that when I worked for a large international services company, our email was regularly snooped and a couple employees were diciplined for mentioning ill opinions of some company execs. Now learning that some companies have people whose job it is to regularly phish for any posts anywhere by managers... Phew, kind of creepy, but I guess not totally shocking.
The company I worked for from 1998 to 2003 was swallowed up by a British conglomerate, which later swallowed up anothr British conglomerate and renamed the combination "Invensys". Shortly after this happened we were advised that one of the VPs had instituted a capture process for all emails and internet access for all corporate components, and that none of us should have any expectation that anything we keyed through a company resource would be private.
At my next job and my current job I was similarly advised during my orientation that company resources were expected to be used for company purposes only, and your email and internet website access could be expected to be monitored (at least, if you came under suspicion they could go back into their data logs to check what you had been doing).
August 1, 2008 at 10:02 am
Ted Pin (8/1/2008)
(We have the same belief that access to legal measures help us too, but once when I would have unhesitatingly stopped to help an injured person, I now must consider whether I will get sued for helping. We should we be afraid to help?)
In California we passed a "Good Samaritan" law about 20 years ago to prevent anyone from suing someone because the aid they tried to give was insufficient or resulted in unintentional injury.
August 1, 2008 at 10:10 am
Trader Sam (8/1/2008)
We all know that HR tends to be a serious 'gatekeeper' when it comes to getting a job in a company, which is why everyone always says you need to get your resume to the hiring manager, or at least someone else that is 'technical' so you get a fair consideration. The problem with HR is that those people will read some article or study that says if a person possesses some trait or partakes in some activity, or has certain tendencies, or whatever, that person will not be a good employee or will not be successful in a certain role, etc.
This is so true. One time I was contacted by a headhunter agency to see if I was interested in interviewing with a company. I was, it was arranged, I saw the technical manager, he was impressed and recommended me... then I saw the HR person and they told me that it was unlikely I would be selected because they didn't want to pay the headhunter agency's fee! He actually said if I waited six months so the headhunter agency couldn't claim any fee, and reapplied directly, that my chances of getting hired were very high.
I felt this would be unethical, and an indication that the company dynamic was not one I would want to be involved with, so I never went back to them. (I also told the agency what the HR person had told me.)
August 1, 2008 at 10:13 am
Very interesting responses and quite a variety of opinions.
I have to say I think Andy Leonard has put it better than I did, Thanks Andy!
I think it comes down to "poster beware" since your online profile matters to people.
August 1, 2008 at 10:25 am
Someguy (8/1/2008)
Example: During a break a checked a site that I often go to for information. It's a totally clean site. However, one day they had a discussion about breast cancer, so the word "breast" got caught in our corporate filters. I got a brightly colored page stating "THIS SITE IS BLOCKED BECAUSE OF PORNOGRAPHY". I"m glad no one was looking over my shoulder. I'm also glad my name didn't pop up on this site anywhere, otherwise I'd be associated with it....
Oh! I had forgotten about that. I think that is the same corporate filter that they used at that first company I discussed in my earlier post. I saw that pop-up when I visited a Great Dane discussion group on my lunch hour -- it seems they were talking about bitches (female Great Danes) and their hygiene issues.
At least I don't have to worry about inadvertently triggering that anymore.
August 1, 2008 at 10:33 am
jpowers (8/1/2008)
Someguy (8/1/2008)
Example: During a break a checked a site that I often go to for information. It's a totally clean site. However, one day they had a discussion about breast cancer, so the word "breast" got caught in our corporate filters. I got a brightly colored page stating "THIS SITE IS BLOCKED BECAUSE OF PORNOGRAPHY". I"m glad no one was looking over my shoulder. I'm also glad my name didn't pop up on this site anywhere, otherwise I'd be associated with it....
Oh! I had forgotten about that. I think that is the same corporate filter that they used at that first company I discussed in my earlier post. I saw that pop-up when I visited a Great Dane discussion group on my lunch hour -- it seems they were talking about bitches (female Great Danes) and their hygiene issues.
At least I don't have to worry about inadvertently triggering that anymore.
That reminds me of my last job - in the intranet forum one of the factories would be referred to as sc***horpe! Sufficed to say when the administrators realised the error they whitelisted that particular location so that it could be viewed unadulterated by the filter!
August 1, 2008 at 11:00 am
Here's a twist... Everybody so far has focused on what YOU post about your life on the web. How does the fictitious HR person distinguish between what YOU post and what your disgruntled ex-significant something-or-other posts about you?
Foex, my wife apparently didn't know that our 15th anniversary photo with the two of us carrying our Bushmaster carbines @ ImpactZone was on the family website... She was briefly concerned when an acquaintance asked her what "that rifle thingie" was that she was toting in the picture.
I don't think that there's a way to avoid HR perusing your public life (yes, if you did it in public, including on the web, it's not private -- even if YOU didn't post it)... and if it nixes your for employment, you'll never know it happened unless HR is stupid enough to tell you WHY you were nixed. Or the hiring manager is dumb enough to expose his company to liability by asking you about your chia pet habit. Seriousy, eeew. How could you?!
All that said (and for the Microsoft HR people who're listening), we still need a fourth shooter for our team this weekend at the Courage Classic 2008 in Bremerton. It's an annual charity event for a good cause: "Combat Casualty Assistance Campaign of the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society." It'll be fun, even though the LE and military pros will wipe the floor with us, I'm sure.
Heh.
:hehe:
August 1, 2008 at 11:18 am
Professional profile like Linked in should be approved by your company if your using it to promote business. Personal profiles are just that, they have nothing to do with business and the business has no right whatsoever to enforce their policy on our lives.
Although not my cup of tea their are a lot of funky groups out there as you know and I'm sure Humana does not peticuarly want to know if an employee has a foot fetish or something akin to that. It's personal and should not be used or promoted in the business environment.
In the business Linkedin = Yes Myspace = No.
😎
Linuxed
August 1, 2008 at 11:22 am
After scanning the editorial and reading the posts I went back to the article that originated the discussion and found it was really pretty innocuous. At one point the writer mentions that the scan of internet sites was more often being used to include candidates than to exclude them, and at the end it said:
Individuals who show a high level of maturity and professionalism, however, can prevent this type of reaction by simply being selective about what kind of information they share.
”How you present yourself online is a snapshot of your decision-making ability and your integrity”
I think we can all agree this is true, although it is possible to slip up, as has been discussed above.
August 1, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I've just been listening to BBC Radio 4 and there is a case where someone has been prosecuted for having an Al Queda training manual. It is illegal in the UK under anti-terrorism legislation.
The same manual is for sale on Amazon.Com or can be downloaded from the US department of justice web site. Apparently (and you'll have to correct me on this if I'm wrong) but once someone has been taken to trial in the US the evidence in the trial become public domain.
I've said it many times but there are only really 3 questions being asked in a job interview
Can they do the job? Will they do the job? Will they fit in?
If HR Google the net then those are the questions you are going to get asked. If you put something that HR find contraversial on the web then the "Will they fit in" question is going to be asked.
If you put something indiscreet on a website when the job you hold requires discretion then you are probably not the brightest person on earth.
August 1, 2008 at 2:33 pm
It's not a question of whether you *can* get information about someone, but a question of whether you *should*. It is a question of ethics. There is a wide set of questions that is illegal to ask in an interview--for good reason. Yet many of those questions (are you married? what is your religion? etc.) are public information in that it is no secret and it could be gathered by hiring a public detective as someone else posted or a quick search on the internet.
Just because it is easier to get information off the internet, just because some people declare the information as "public" because it is so easy to gather, does not mean that it is ethical to gather and use that information in hiring practices or to dictate to people how they should live their private lives. We can choose to create the kind of society we want even with the existence of the internet. What kind of world do you want to live in? Don't give up.
I believe in the value of privacy and will fight to live in a world that respects it. I'm no more willing to give up my privacy right than I am my civil liberties (making me a minority American). Be brave.
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